I ended up imitating my GF while she was gone, but worse… I had a lot more oil in the wok that I wasn’t paying attention to (well i was next to it, waiting for it to heat up while watching YouTube) and instead of it just catching the bottom of the pan on fire, the entire pot of oil went up and while trying to put it out my sleeve caught on fire; severely burning the crap out of my hand, and then I thought, set it in the sink and try to find a way to cover it. And it spilled into the sink causing a huge fire…. the whole sink was ablaze…. On the Bright side, it was the first time I have ever had a real fire in the kitchen, my hand that got burnt is the one with little feeling, it was an old shirt and the only loss was a plastic container that melted causing all the Black.

And the craziest thing that happened; while the smoke alarm was going off for life 10+ minutes, my neighbors were just yelling at me to be quiet and to shut up lol.

So since a lot of people have come to me to ask about Android and apps, or something else android, I thought I’d put up a list of the apps I use most (free and paid). I use apps that I think are best at what they do, or simply because they’re the most fun to play lol. I will separate the apps into “Tablet”, “Phone”, and “Both” and will discuss the apps I find to be the best and what they do.

(These aren’t all the apps, they are the most used and favored apps I have on my devices & I recommend to others)Also: Some of these apps have PC/Mac/Linux counter parts.
(Almost all the games do for sure)

Music:Google Play Music – Music stored in the cloud, no storage needed for my music anymore.

Navigation: Maps – Allows you to use GPS navigation, rate restaurant, check-in to venues, and share your location with friends and family.

Utility Apps:

-= Save my Attach =- – is a great app for saving attachments from those pesky e-mails that have unsupported file types within Android (which as new versions of Android come along is getting to be less)

App Cache Cleaner – a necessary tool on all android devices and should be ran a 2-3 times a week (or more if you have very little space on your phone or own a tablet (On my tablet I run this every 2 days or more, but my tablet is also my primary usage device, use it more than my computer even)

ES File Explorer – THE best file explore there is anywhere on the market. It can create it’s own FTP for remote access to phone or tablet, it can be a root explorer, as well as you can link to LAN computers, FTP servers, and even has built-in Dropbox, Box, SugarSync, Google Drive, and SkyDrive setups ready to go and allows multiple accounts of each. (It has it all, it is an invaluable tool)

DiskUsage – a great app to see how much space is on you SDCard or internal and what is taking up all the space.

920 Text Editor – just your basic text editor, but does one hell of an amazing job

Adobe Flash Player 11.1 – if you want to see flash online you’ll need this app (for Jelly Bean you just have to side load the application (download the .apk and install it manually)

IrssiConnectBot – My favorite app for TTS connecting to my home server, a great too that is similar to PuTTy, but for android

Grocery iQ – Tablet // Grocery iQ– a way for my GF and I to share a grocery list and even have it separated by store and be able to not only have a list, but also scan items into the app. Also it allows you to enter in the price of the item too so you can price check when at other stores or see when a product has changed price

Any.DO – an awesome ToDo list app that syncs with your Google tasks as well as you can share your tasks with your spouse. It is super simple and sleek, simplistic but still perfect.

Key Ring – Remove all those rewards cards from you wallet and purse, go digital with this app and get rid of the clutter!

Mint.com – Keep an eye on all your finances (Bank accounts, Loans, and Credit Cards) with this app. Never go over budget and see where you spend your money most.

For School or Office:

Drive– Google Drive access on the go from anywhere in the world where you get service or WiFi to be able to upload or create documents/spreadsheets/presentations/etc

GetGlue – To check into movies, tv shows, books, games, and more (you earn stickers that you can get in real life in the mail for free), it also allows you to mark the things you like, dislike, or favorite and you can write reviews for them.

HaxSync – Syncs my Facebook friends (all their info like Bday, Email, Phone, Picture, Etc) and calendar (events and birthdays) without having any problems and no need to install the crappy Facebook App

Yelp – Review restaurant you go to and share your love or hatred for a certain establishment with the world right from your phone

Ebook / Digital Reading:

Mantano Reader Premium – The Best ebook/PDF reader there is on the market (buy the year subscription for $10 and sync you library, reading position, highlights, bookmarks, and notes to multiple devices)

Manga Watcher Application – If your a fan of manga, then this app is for you. Get you weekly downloads right to your phone or tablet as well as add your collection you already have to the app.

Other Useful apps:

Translate – Anyone traveling overseas or studying a new language or ran into a foreigner, this app is amazing.

Ancestry – is a great app for viewing and editing my family tree that is stored online in the cloud at their website

Craigslist Mobile – this app is for anyone who loves Craigslist (buying or selling), it is the best app available, though it’s got a slight learning curve but is the best available and fastest

Flixster – For checking showtimes on my tablet or phone, this app is amazing, even has the ability watch the trailers for each movie. As well as you can write and read reviews of films The only thing it is missing is a Fandago button for buying tickets.

Google Voice – to text and make calls from your Google voice number instead of wasting texts (unless you have unlimited) uses data instead to send texts and when paired with SipDroid you can even make calls with Data only saving on minutes.

Tip N Split – Great for those that want to leave a certain amount or % or even split up a bill….

TV Show Favs – Track your favorite TV Shows and know when the next episode is airing.

Unified Remote – Remote for computer a (great if you hook it up to your TV)

OvuView – Menstrual tracker for women (but men can use it to know when they should run and hide and be nice, or come home with random chocolates and flowers).

Voxer – It’s a Walkie-Talkie for android, save on minutes and texts; use data or WiFi to talk with friends with your real voice or send pics/files or texts all from the app.

Tablet:

Games (3 or 4 of these are on my phone, but I thought it best to keep them all together):

ZENONIA4 – Great RPG game on your phone or tablet. I’ve loved this series since #1

Kid Games/Apps:

Kid Mode – THE Best App if you have kids. It is a child lock mode for all android dives and gives kids only access to apps you choose and can’t be unlocked without the password or answering a question. Go to Parent Mode -> You setup an account and “create” your family (add your children to the program) then allow them the apps you want. Then give it to the kids. It’s awesome!!

Cat In The Hat – Great read along book, it’s great to have the book I read as a child available for my daughter to read along with on my tablet

Brilliant Quotes FREE – I like daily quotes from people that are smarter than I and some are very profound, others are freaking hilarious.

ComicRack Free – this is IMO the best digital comic reader on android, it even has a desktop companion for organizing your comics easily, the reading and response of this app is the best I could find and I love it (for a while I even had it on my phone too, it’s that lightweight).

Currents – This is one of my favorite tablet apps. What this app does it takes your favorite news, blog sites, or similar (Forbes, Huffington Post, CNET, TechCrunch, Slash Gear, and 100’s of thousands of others) and delivers them in a easily read (with pictures) to your tablet (or phone) for offline readings.

RedLaser – Scan products at a store or manually enter them to create a wish list, birthday gift list for your kid, wedding registrar, and more, then share the list with who ever; it finds local deals and online deals and even tells you the distance and if the item is in stock.

For School or Office:

CamScanner – Scan documents, white boards, or whatever with your camera and turn them into great looking PDFs to upload/share anywhere

Smart Tools – a set of tools that every phone should have (there are free versions of every tool by other developers, but this app they are all bundled and better, plus I got it for $0.25 on the play store during a sale.

So I have talked to more financial aid people in the past week than I have ever in my collective time in college. The most fucked up part of it all, is the fact that each person in the office has been blaming the new system, a system which they decided to switch to a few weeks before the new semester started. Tell me, how is this a smart decision and what kind of BABOON! would agree to such a decision!? If this is how the college is being ran, perhaps they need a new president! and some new faces in the boardroom. A bunch of tired old men controlling the functional behavior of a school in the 21st Century that uses computer systems, servers, exchange accounts, and more. It totally reminds me of the United States Government, a bunch of tired old rich bitches that do not understand the technologies of today making decisions that control, regulate, or something, even a child can see that is a problem. A person who doesn’t understand what a “bug report” is should never attempt to ever dictate how technology is used let alone decide to get different systems 3 weeks before classes start. Seriously it is common sense! This is just an unacceptable way to run a school.

In my previous post, I posted about how financial aid is late and telling everyone that it is just a little late, but will be out soon, and now they are calling it a mistake within the system and funds were never going to be distributed till 17th – 20th. Now that they have decided to change their story, guess what? that’s right they still have not done almost anything. Students all over, between Pullman and Vancouver are still waiting for their funds. Students are getting told different things by different people. Some students have been told checks will mail out on Wed, others are being told their DIRECT deposit won’t be in till Friday at the earliest and myself, I was told that I would get my money today, but guess what? it is not here…maybe they meant tomorrow…or the next day.

As it stands Pullman and their financial aid office control everything for all the students at both campuses, and do not really seem to care about the students lives or well beings. Today a student was told by their financial aid counselor that she needs to just use her credit cards instead or borrow from her family, if that were possible do they not realize that we already have thought of that, perhaps we are old enough to know how things work and no longer rely on our parents or family to pay for everything? Right…so let me just fill you in, her as well as many others (myself included) have an estimated family contribution (EFC) score of 0, meaning no one is available to help them out with finances, they are not getting any help. They like myself live off financial aid and some even pick up some part-time work to help pay the rest of their bills. It is hard enough to live off just Aid and a part-time job can help a bit, but it’s still tough going full-time and penny-pinching.

It is their job as our school, they get paid from our private and federal loans (which we have to pay back), yet they can not seem to manage their own systems properly and instead screw every student that is dependant on the aid. Their solution is to borrow from family until your aid come in to survive and get a week behind in class because no one strictly on aid can afford to buy books since there is no aid yet. The money is locked in their systems just sitting there and they are slowly processing each student one by one.

The biggest thing that baffles my mind is other students in my same predicament, we have been processed and they have paid off our tuition, but the rest of the money that we are going into debt over has not been giving to us, instead it is in the system sitting there. How the hell does this happen, they process our funds and pay the school, but they just skip the step of giving us the amount left from our private loans? How does this even happen? Did they decide it was more important to pay themselves before giving their students the money they desperately need!. Seriously, this a big problem!

Washington State University/WSU-Vancouver really need to fix their financial aid department!. You do not tell all students they will be getting their money on a certain day and then just not give it to them! Some students live off financial aid, and as hard as it apparently is for the the board to comprehend, even the slightest change in money flow can upset the fine balance a student has developed. Not receiving aid on time can result in loss of food, unpaid bills, not able to buy books (because some of them sell out FAST!), and possibly loosing their apt for late payments. Not only is the financial aid department metaphorically and physically screwing over students with late payment, but the board without student consult decided to raise the tuition by 17%, yet refused to give students extra financial aid. These actions not only make it hard for any student, especially those that have no estimated family contribution currently rely solely on aid for everything (until they can find some work study availability).

Way to go guys, a state school that used to be a very great school and have a great reputation is being flushed down the proverbial toilet because the people in charge are greedy sons of bitches. Oh and the kicker of it all is, the only compensation we are recieving for being so inconvenienced, is an extension on late fees! do you really think that helps very much!? Whatever happened to a school that just longed to teach its students knowledge and help progress the collective knowledge of the human race? The only thing that any school seems to care about is money! Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and all the other great minds of the past would be appalled at the change. But if money is what you are oh so worried about, how would you feel if every student decided to change and go to University of Washington or Estern Washington University? Might put a damper or your wallets, right? Well stop screwing over your students and they might help you save money in other parts of the school.

A fictitious director of the 1950s and his family and friends are put through the wringer during the McCarthy Era and Red Scare. Director David Merrill (Robert De Niro) is a rising, successful and well known director in Hollywood who is returning home from film abroad in France and trying to deal with his family that is breaking apart at the seams. He is unaware of what awaits him upon his return. He has been accused by one of his friends and colleagues as being a Communist and has been called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities to testify on his innocence and give them names of Communists he knows, his friends and wife. During the struggling of trying to prove his innocence and take the higher moral ground and not point fingers to anyone; he finds himself unable to find and keep a job with any company, not even on Broadway or in a small camera repair shop.

This is a movie that gives anyone that watches a look into the past of America’s dirty laundry, exposing the troubles that people faced during the Hollywood Blacklisting caused by the forceful and unlawful trials during the McCarthy Era. It is rare that you can find a movie that not only gives the viewer a look at the bad past in America, but also doing with such great skill. Though Merrill is a fictional character created by the talented writing skills of Irwin Winkler, the problems he faced were very real to actors, directors, and all people in the Hollywood profession. As a historical fiction based on true events there is not a film that could better show what it was like to be in Hollywood during the inquisition of the American government.

Winkler not only wrote, but he also directed this epic film. Winkler’s talent of directing and writing makes you not only see and understand what it was like to live in the time, but his talents combined with De Niro’s great and talented acting (that brings like to Winkler’s imaginary character) you get to feel what is was like for Merrill. The sudden shock when he finds that he has been named as a Communist blindsides not only the character, but the audience as well. The introduction of the character and his friends gives us mostly just his view and that of his wife, so we never truly know what’s going on till he meets with the film company’s lawyer. This method of directing and writing really pulled you in to the experience and the shock that he feels. De Niro’s portrayal of the character is perfect, not only do you understand what Merrill is going thorough, but you feel for him and it makes you understand his decision to not play ball with the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Though he is going against the grain and taking a stand against an immoral and corrupt government that is trying to instill fear into its citizens and enemies alike, you don’t view Merrill as a great Martyr or saint. Winkler shows us that he is faulted himself with a family slowly breaking apart caused by him spending months at a time away working on films and that he seems to care more for his movies than his own family; he also in the past did participate in ban the bomb rallies. His life and struggles, during this sad time in American history, are shown to us in a way that make you still like the character and want him to be a bigger man than the rest and just say no.

Along with Winkler’s brilliant mind and an amazing cast of characters, James Newton Howard’s composition of music really sets the mood in your mind. He makes the feeling of the movie and the scenes burn in your mind and explode in the sound that matches the mood. This great team of talent might have been lost without the steady hands and great pivoting of Michael Ballhaus. His cinematography skills with Winkler’s direction made the perfect combination and helped carry the movie and give it a 50s feel. With a real life feel to the times, through the sets, props, and clothing; Leslie Dilley’s production design really makes it feel like the 50s, but without the whole Pleasantville and Stepford Wives feeling.

This movie right now in particular is an important film, linking us to a past mostly forgotten and beginning to repeat itself. In our present time with the government using the word “terrorist” to instill fear once again and unlawfully detain, question, and imprison people, we must look to this movie and the past to remember how it was for them. Today people are losing jobs from the same actions of the government that are portrayed within this movie, putting people on watch-lists and pulling them out of work to be “questioned,” because someone accused them of being a terrorist. Another recent connection from the McCarthy to the present is the recent passing of the NDAA that now gives the government the “right” to do all the same things that McCarthy pushed for during the Red Scare and shown within this brilliant movie.

So Lightbox sold out to +Facebook+ and I don’t know what app I should use for photo sharing now… +Streamzoo or Picplz or +Instagram or a different one. I also need a program that will show my +Twitter and Facebook photostreams like Lightbox does on my +Android products…. Any ideas people?

So after all the hype of Beta 1 that I saw in the Nerd stream and Facebook, I decided I needed to go get this amazing app right? Yeah Not so much, there might be potential, but it wasn’t even ready for a beta release; let alone a “Beta 2” that I installed. You know generally in a beta release you have most the kinks worked out and a generally ok working app with maybe a few bugs…. Yeah not these guys, at least not for my experience.. I don’t have an ancient computer either, I can play LoL and WoW as well as PWE games with little to no lag at all… So first thing I see after filling out all the info and registering and setting up sync is this:

As you can see the my screen apparently isn’t wide enough for this program and I have an annoying “suggestion” bar. Are you effing kidding me, if I have an android phone, hell if I’m even installing this program, you can almost bet I know what programs I like on droid, are you seriously going to suggest apps (and shitty ones at that!?).

So I decided that I can get past the resolution thing (it happens, just not usually on my 1024 x 800 screen, I have an old tube monitor still cause it was free from when my own monitor got broke). So anyways, as I’m watching it install and sync my apps like 80% of them are coming back saying something about my graphic card not being able to support the “high” graphics, seriously bitch? LightBox does not use “high graphics” !!! They took their website, made a fucking mobile app out of the damn thing, I can do all the same shit online as the phone and I do it daily!!

I go into use an app first thing after sync finishes, I choose Google Voice, cause they don’t have a desktop app and it’d be cool to have an app for that right. Yeah black screen of fucking death on BlueStack (BS for short), and I do mean death! It fucking annihilated all usability of BS. Every app returned a black screen of go fuck yourself, nothing worked at all. So I did what every other nerd does when a program goes tits up on you…Uninstalled, Reboot and Reinstall. Yeah so that didn’t work the greatest, took forever to reinstall and sync. So it finally finished and I decided perhaps Google apps are a no go because they go off the internal android Gmail user ID that you have to input into a droid before you can even DL apps, I choose Instant Buttons because I love the app and all the nerdy/old/cool sounds it has on it, I click a button for a sound and nothing, not a freaking peep from my speakers. I checked all diagnostics and test (there’s sound coming from the puppies, just not from BS).

So again I’m hit with a problem that makes absolutely no sense! I continue to try the app and the damned RocketDock is ALWAYS up top, even pressing hid it just condenses to a single icon and it is constantly “On Top” of every window with no way to change it, Seriously!!!??? Are you fucking nuts!? You’re blocking every other apps center top bar and that includes my Chrome tabs! The only way to get back the top bar is to close out of BS 100% by going to the tray, right-click, and press quit. Pain in my ass is what that is, where is RocketDock’s famous auto hide feature seriously, I used to use that app in my Fapple desktop (Fake Apple)…. Another huge fucking no brainer flaw….. But lets continue to try and use this damned program with no sound and not 100% resolution and 20% of the apps on my tablet and phone….

So next app I open is one of my fav apps for keeping track of my television shows.. I get stuck on this screen for 20 min:

Ended up having to Ctrl+Shit+Esc and “End Process Tree” on all 3 individual processes BS uses… Yeah this is great fun right here…. I double click the icon to open back up BS and get this:

followed by this:

Had to FC the damned thing again and try again… Got it boot without issue on 3rd try.

Go to select an app (oh yeah, forgot to mention the app drawer dropdown doesn’t have a scroll feature at al)….

A few apps actually worked without crashing it, but that’s because pretty much every app that was ‘”allowed” to be useable were lame shitty apps that it would be 200% more efficient to just open in chrome. Since the web version work way better and has more features. Or they were utility apps that are useless on a PC (I just synced all apps to see how many would work).

Lastly I also ran into a problem with BS, I “quit” from the tray, but the RocketDock is still up there in my fucking way!~

So on top of all these problems I faced and issues with the GUI, BS was slower that molasses in the middle winter making BS nothing but another useless on my PC that I uninstalled right before writing this app